Vodafone explains N95 crippling | The Register

Vodafone explains N95 crippling | The Register

It’s been a busy few days around these parts, so we’ve kind of picked up on this a bit late. If you’ve missed it being reported on other sites, the story goes something like this.

On Wednesday this week, The Register broke the news that Orange and Vodafone are shipping Nokia N95 handsets in the UK with the VOIP capability removed. As one of the main selling points of the N95 (apart from it looks damn sexy, and does everything short of making a decent cup of tea), understandably there’s a growing backlash about what appears to be two mobile operators trying to protect their traditional voice revenue by stopping their customers using VOIP, and therefore bypassing their network.

Orange so far have said not a lot – apart from confirming they have disabled the VOIP functionality on their branded N95’s, and future VOIP-enabled handsets may – or may not – have VOIP disabled.

Vodafone, on the other hand, have said that the move was actually to protect their customers from running up unnecessarily high data bills. Uh right. Maybe they’re planning to disable the Wifi option on the N95’s too?

Trading Standards have waded into the argument, as Nokia are advertising the N95 as being VOIP-capable – but the version sold by Orange and Vodafone isn’t. Meanwhile, there’s probably someone over at the Advertising Standards Authority trying to figure out who to blame for misleading advertising.

If you’ve just bought a Vodafone or Orange-branded N95, there is a way to sort this. First, go back to the store you bought it from and shout. Very loudly. Make it clear that the lack of VOIP means your phone is useless, and you’re going to talk to the ASA, Trading Standards, Watchdog, et al, about how you feel you’ve been misled.

Second, you *could* reflash your phone to a standard Nokia version of software, instead of the operator crippled one. However, be warned – this isn’t for the faint hearted, and will most probably invalidate your warranty along the way.

If you’re a Vodafone and Orange customer finding yourself in this predicament, let me know!